“My heart is moved by all I cannot save”

Why Won’t Al Gore Debate Climate Change?

Simple, the Deniers would win … because they have no evidence or facts on their side.

Huh? If they have no evidence or facts, how can they win a debate?

Easy, because a debate is not about being right, it is about winning by appearing to be right. The more the audience does not understand the issue, the easier it is to win. You just need one thing, it’s called “the Gish Gallop.”
How this works: as fast as possible you tell as many lies and distortions as possible, cram them into the available time. It really does not matter whether you know them to be lies or whether they are things you actually believe yourself. The important thing is to pack in as much outrageous nonsense as possible into the time available.

Your opponent is then stuck using his time to either:

i) Simply state each lie is a lie, one for one, in which case it becomes his word/my word;
ii) Refuting the lies with facts and data, but of course refuting nonsense takes longer than saying it, so he might cover 1 point in 5, which leaves the impression that he had no answer for 4/5 points;
iii) Try to make his own points, in which case it can seem that he had no answer to any of the points you made.

No matter what he chooses, he uses up all of his time and the best he can do is seem to make it 50/50. As an added bonus most reasonable people become flustered when they hear outrageous nonsense and blatent lies being presented as “facts” and perform even more poorly.

Let’s take a simple example to illustrate this:

If I were to say “Water is a natural substance necessary for life, so the flooding of the US Midwest this summer was a good thing for people and crops” everyone would immediately recognize that what I said was idiotic. No problem there, just about everyone knows that the floods were a disaster.

What if I said “Water is a natural substance necessary for life, so increased rainfall on the US Midwest would be a good thing for people and crops”? How many would immediately realize that it is more or less the same as my first statement? And of course it depends how much more rainfall, which I didn’t specify.

My supposed opponent would then have to explain that the amount expected would cause flooding, explain why that amount is expected, and so on. All in all taking up much more time then it took me to make the statement.

So what if I said, as many Deniers do, that “CO2 is a natural substance necessary for life, so increased CO2 would be a good thing for forests and crops.” It is no less an outrageous statement than claiming flooding would be great, but how many members of the public would see that?

The fact is that the impacts of climate change and increased CO2 on plant growth are more complex than simple flooding, although just as devastating if not more so. Explaining why and how takes a considerable amount of time. In the meantime I will have made 10 other outrageous claims such as any of those found here which my opponent will not have time to address. So he gets one and I get 10 – I win.

You can see the Gish Gallop in action in this debate between Christopher Monckton and Richard Littlemore of DeSmogBlog . This one is quite interesting because it is pretty clear Monckton ‘won’ the debate … so he’s right, right?

Not quite. As has been well documented elsewhere Monckton’s ‘science’ and ‘facts’ are laughable. Further Littlemore took the trouble to go back over the debate and refute all of Monckton’s nonsense .

But even so, Monckton ‘won’ the debate. Pretty much everything he had to say was utter bilge, but he still ‘won’.

To a limited extent the Gish Gallop works in the blogosphere as well, and for similar reasons. It take only 3 to 5 paragraphs to pack in a lot of nonsense, at least as many pages to thoroughly expose it for nonsense. In a world where people skim rather than read that will tend to have the same effect as running out of time, except you run out of reader attention instead.

Yep, the Gish Gallop is the way to go when you have no actual facts and even less integrity. The Gallop is used quite effectively by the Climate Change Deniers, professional industry shills like Patrick Moore, and the Creationists. As mentioned, in print is it easy to expose you as a total fraud, but who reads anymore?

Which is why smart people do not debate except in print. If the Climate Deniers have any real evidence disproving Climate Change they can publish it in the scientific literature, in which case there is no need for any debate.

And if, as seems to be the case, they have absolutely no evidence whatsoever, there is even less point to having a debate.

Kudos for Littlemore in attempting to expose Monckton, but it didn’t turn out well. Monckton was very effective with the Gish Gallop – a rapid stream of lies, some of them repeated for emphasis, all delivered with complete assurance in a plumby English accent (which, for some, might suggest intellectual superiority).

“Christopher Monckton appears always to have been starring in a Boy’s Own adventure entitled ‘Monckton Saves the Day!'”

and

“[Monckton] purports to show how scientists from a wide range of different disciplines, including atmospheric physics, atmospheric chemistry, climatology and palaeoclimatology, have misunderstood and misused the science of climate change and he tries to debunk them all. Let it not be said that the man lacks ambition.”

and

“…he suffers an extreme case of the patrician sense that good breeding and a decent classical education equip you for anything, even for outwitting the collective intelligence of the world’s best scientific brains…”

It’s an amusing article, worth the read.

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David
Thanks for the comment and the link, it is a good one and well worth the read.

The refutation of the drivel that Monckton was spouting is linked in the article.

I was unaware that Monckton has ever made any science points. AN internet search just turns up all of the same old Denier talking points known to be false. Please direct me to these “science points” so I can see if I disagree with them.

TC In Tampa: Rather than parrot DailyTech, why not look at the data? It’s publicly available and directly contradicts your claims.

You are comparing two months out of 29 years, which is open to a fair chunk of noise. The TREND, i.e. the important bit, is steeply negative. Doesn’t matter whether you use raw data, anomalies, or minimums.

If you don’t know the difference between signal and noise, who are you to be calling anything in science ‘hocus-pocus’?

I understand your point, which may hold true in some cases. I just think it is important to hear what 31000 or more scientists have to say. You think it is an agenda thing. I could understand if it was 31000 christians. 31000 muslims, 31000 jews. 31000 kitty cats. But these are scientists and according to them, there is great harm to be done to our environment if we do go through with this. [1] The fact that global warming fits in perfectly/ and is a great excuse for the UN agenda is a very convenient “truth”.
Let us examine the other things Al Gore has done. Look at who this guy is, he doesn’t follow his own rules, look at his energy consumption. They have the solution, they may be using this as the problem/reaction.

Also, isn’t it worth looking into if it is going to destroy some poor countries, destroy already industrialized nations economies, and potentially harm the environment? Who is looking out for what? [2] I have never known many scientists to be particularly creations/religious. What would they have to gain from signing this? Scrutiny? It is very un sexy un popular not status quo to not be on the Al Gore bandwagon. Again WHAT IF these things WILL HARM the environment?http://www. — petitionproject.org/frequently_asked_questions.php

The truth shall set you free. I am not claiming to know the truth, I just have to consider peoples motivations. I think the UN and Al Gore may have more of an agenda, given their history, that 31000 scientists. IMHO.
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[1] Except your 31,000 scientists never existed, nor did these fantasy scientists ever offer any actual science. The ridiculous Oregon Petition was an obvious fraud the day it was released.

Sorry. Its ludicrous. If you are on the right side and a substantial minority disagrees.. and you Beleive you have the FACTS on your side then get up to the podium and calmly, convincingly, continue to make your point. Christopher Hitchens is (was) a great example of this. I completely disagree with the man but totally 100% feel he was an honorable man. Meet with your opposition and trounce them. TROUNCE THEM KINDLY and you will win. Hole up and clearly you will lose, as you are. Government is not the answer to ANY global problems. If you don’t want to debate GW then debate the cure. Government is NOT the cure. Gov’t only makes things worse. Freedom is the cure. Fight for freedom you numb nuts and you might see REAL change.